Nissan Stadium

Nissan Stadium as seen from Section 341, immediately prior to kickoff of Titans vs Texans, October 29, 2006

During the 1995 NFL Preseason, the Houston Oilers faced the Washington Redskins in an exhibition game at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the game, Oilers owner Bud Adams met Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen and began discussing the possibility of moving the team to Middle Tennessee, due to Adams' discontent with the team's lease at the Astrodome and unwillingness of the City of Houston to build a new football-only stadium. Later that fall, Adams and Bredesen announced the team's intent to move to Nashville. The city and team decided to locate a stadium on the eastern bank of the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville, on the site of a blighted industrial development.

In a special referendum on May 7, 1996, voters in Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County voted to approve partial funding of the proposed stadium. The vote, which allocated US$144 million of public money to the project, passed with a 59% majority.[16] The pro-stadium organization, known as "NFL Yes!" outspent the anti-stadium group by a ratio of 16:1 during the campaign.

The funds initially would be raised through an increase in the Metro water tax. The ongoing funding is through a 300% increase in Davidson County individual homeowner property taxes. Much of the remaining construction costs were funded through the sale of personal seat licenses. Some State of Tennessee money was allocated to the project, on the condition that the Tennessee State University football team move its home games there, and with the request that the incoming NFL team be named "Tennessee" (instead of "Nashville"), which the franchise was planning to do anyway, in an attempt to appeal to the broader region.

The stadium's construction was delayed when the construction site was hit by a tornado that struck downtown Nashville on April 16, 1998 and destroyed several cranes, but the stadium opened in time for the first scheduled event.

On May 3, 2010, the stadium's playing surface was covered with 6 feet (1.8 m) of water due to the heavy rains and flooding from the Cumberland River. The flood also reached down to the locker rooms of the stadium.[17][18]

The stadium received upgrades during the summer of 2012. Among the improvements are a new sound system, high-speed elevators to the upper levels, and LED ribbon boards mounted on the faces of the upper mezzanines. Two new HD Lighthouse brand LED video displays measuring 157 feet (48 m) by 54 feet (16 m) were installed, replacing the entire end zone scoreboard apparatuses. At the time of installation, the two boards became the second-largest displays in the National Football League (trailing only AT&T Stadium).[19]

In 2014 and 2015, the stadium hosted the Nashville Kickoff Game, a college football game featuring major NCAA teams for Tennessee.

During the 2018 season, two 20th anniversary logos were put in each of the endzones to help celebrate the Titans 20th year in Nashville. The yard line numbers were also changed to match the number style on the new uniforms.

Naming rights

Adelphia Coliseum in 2002

LP Field logo, 2006–2015

Nissan Stadium in 2017

During its construction, the stadium had no official name, though it was generally referred to as "The East Bank Stadium", a reference to the stadium's location on the eastern bank of the Cumberland River. Upon its completion, it was given the name "Adelphia Coliseum" in a 15-year, $30 million naming rights arrangement with Adelphia Business Solutions, a subsidiary of the larger Adelphia telecommunications company. However, after Adelphia missed a required payment and subsequently filed for bankruptcy in 2002, the agreement was abandoned and the stadium became known simply as "The Coliseum" for four years. (Adelphia itself was dissolved in 2006.)

A naming rights deal with Nashville-based Louisiana-Pacific was inked on June 6, 2006. Louisiana-Pacific, which markets itself as "LP Building Products", paid $30 million over 10 years for naming rights.[20] LP's influence inside the stadium led to the creation of the LP Building Zones in 2007, located beneath the giant scoreboards from Daktronics at the north and south ends of the stadium. The concession stands and restrooms in these two areas were decorated to look like suburban homes using LP products.

On June 24, 2015, car manufacturer Nissan, which has its North American headquarters just south of Nashville in Franklin and operates a large manufacturing plant in nearby Smyrna, bought the naming rights for the stadium in a 20-year contract, rebranding the stadium as Nissan Stadium.[21][22] As part of the sponsor agreement, a 2016 Nissan Titan pickup truck was placed next to the stadium scoreboard.[23]

Downtown Nashville as viewed from the upper decks of Nissan Stadium

The Tennessee Titans have posted an impressive record at Nissan Stadium since moving there in 1999, including winning their first 13 games before losing to the Baltimore Ravens on November 12, 2000.[24] Overall, the Titans are 95-73 in the regular season and 2–2 in playoff games at Nissan Stadium. Every Titans home game (including preseason) has been a sellout since the stadium opened in 1999. This is due to fans purchasing season tickets associated with the personal seat licenses each season ticketholder must own. The seat licenses helped finance construction of the stadium. There is a long waiting list for personal seat licenses, as well as season tickets.

Nissan Stadium regularly hosts soccer matches featuring the United States men's national team as well as by the women's national team and visiting professional clubs. The venue was first used for soccer on April 20, 2004 in an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer and Tecos UAG of the Mexican Primera División.[26] Since then Nissan Stadium has been used for friendly matches by the U.S. women versus Canada in 2004, a return of Tecos against rival F.C. Atlas in 2005, and the U.S. men versus Morocco in 2006.[27] The stadium helped host the CONCACAF men's 2008 and 2012 qualifying tournaments for the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics.[28][29]

On April 1, 2009, the U.S. men's national team played a World Cup qualifier beating Trinidad and Tobago, 3–0. The match saw Jozy Altidore become the youngest American to score a hat trick for the national team.[30][31] The U.S. men returned March 29, 2011 falling to Paraguay in a friendly before a record crowd of 29,059 – the largest to attend a soccer game in the state of Tennessee.[32]

Nissan Stadium was chosen for two games of the Group Stage for the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Major League Soccer club Nashville SC will play their first two seasons in Nissan Stadium beginning in February, 2020.[33]

The record crowd for a soccer game played in Tennessee is 56,232 and was set on July 29, 2017, when English Premier League clubs Manchester City and Tottenham played an exhibition match at Nissan Stadium.[34]

Nissan Stadium can also serve as a large concert venue. The main stage for the annual CMA Music Festival, held every June, is located in the stadium.[35]

• List of current National Football League stadiums
• List of NCAA Division I FCS football stadiums

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nissan Stadium.

• Official Site
• Nissan Stadium – Tennessee Titans